{"id":1436,"date":"2010-03-20T16:03:53","date_gmt":"2010-03-20T22:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1436"},"modified":"2010-03-20T16:03:53","modified_gmt":"2010-03-20T22:03:53","slug":"thinking-about-nature-religion-in-the-snow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1436","title":{"rendered":"Thinking about ‘Nature Religion’ in the Snow"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spent about an hour today on the snow shovel after fifteen inches fell yesterday, laughing a bitter and sardonic laugh at people who associate flowers and bunny wabbits with the spring equinox<\/a>. (At least the Sun is stronger now than in midwinter.)<\/p>\n

Today’s preoccupation is the talk that I have to give tomorrow on nature religion to some Unitarians.<\/p>\n

First off, it’s not an easy term to define. I can think of at least three definitions for “nature religion.”<\/p>\n

1. One was developed by Catherine Albanese,<\/a> historian of American religion: “a symbolic center and the cluster of beliefs, behaviors, and values that encircles it.” (Nature Religion in America<\/em>,<\/a> 7)<\/p>\n

To Albanese, the term was a “scholarly construct” that made it possible to talk about various attitudes and activities under one heading, everything from “natural healing” to national parks to New Agey dietary fads.<\/p>\n

I was present at an American Academy of Religion panel c. 1998 when Professor Albanese learned to her surprise that “nature religion” was also a term self-applied by many contemporary Pagans. Pagans had simply not been on her mental radar.<\/p>\n

2. My own research<\/a>, however, showed various Pagans using “earth religion” and “nature religion” to describe themselves (and to avoid loaded terms like Witch and Pagan) at least as long ago as 1970. And 1970 happens to be the year when the first Earth Day<\/a> was observed.<\/p>\n

3. Somewhat similar to Albanese, another religious studies professor, Bron Taylor<\/a>, has a recent book called Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

Not particularly theistic, Taylor defines “dark green religion” as “religion that considers nature to be sacred, imbued with intrinsic value, and worthy of reverent care.” The “dark” suggests not just intensity but also nature religion’s propensity to “precipitate or exacerbate violence” (ix).<\/p>\n

Once jokingly described to me as “the house intellectual of Earth First!<\/a>” Taylor has had a long interest in studying ecotage and other environmental violence, along with more peaceful manifestations of nature religion as\u00a0 surfing culture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Consequently, where Albanese tends to be more interested in the nineteenth century, Taylor is more focused on contemporary environmentalism and politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spent about an hour today on the snow shovel after fifteen inches fell yesterday, laughing a bitter and sardonic laugh at people who associate flowers and bunny wabbits with the spring equinox. (At least the Sun is stronger now than in midwinter.) Today’s preoccupation is the talk that I have to give tomorrow on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,18,48],"class_list":["post-1436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-nature","tag-nature-religion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-na","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5587,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5587","url_meta":{"origin":1436,"position":0},"title":"Viewing the Earth from Space: A Major Change in Nature Religion?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A link to a site about an exhibit and conference in German devoted to the \"California ideology,\" symbolized by a cover from Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog\u00a0 from 1968. The image of the \u201cblue planet,\u201d a new perspective of the earth as seen from the outside, is one of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hkw.de\/media\/bilder\/2013_3\/the_whole_earth_1\/whole_earth_catalog_TEASERBILD.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4920,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4920","url_meta":{"origin":1436,"position":1},"title":"End of Year Lists: Books, Movies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 31, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Religion Dispatches lists five important new books on alternative and metaphysical spirituality in America \u2014 I prefer that to saying they are about the \"nones,\" which is a vague term \u2014 yes, well, so is \"alternative.\" Catherine Albanese of UC-Santa Barbara has done important work in identifying first the non-theistic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1159,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1159","url_meta":{"origin":1436,"position":2},"title":"What Happened to Ecopsychology?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Lupa posts on bioregionalism, animism, and ecopsychology.When M. was in grad school in psychology in the 1990s, she hoped that ecopsychology would be the Next Big Thing. Articles on the psychological affects of interacting (or not) with the non-human world were popping up in places like McCall's magazine. Addressing \"nature-deficit\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"nature\"","block_context":{"text":"nature","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=nature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0226011461","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5073,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5073","url_meta":{"origin":1436,"position":3},"title":"Gerald Gardner and the Question of Polytheism.","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently reviewed Philip Heselton's latest biography of Gerald Gardner, but I did not have time to discuss one of his final observations, written in a too-brief closing chapter, \"An Assessment of Gerald Gardner.\" Heselton writes, \"Indeed, he really didn't, I think, have any of what we might call 'spiritual'\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"nature religion\"","block_context":{"text":"nature religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=nature-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6302,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6302","url_meta":{"origin":1436,"position":4},"title":"New York’s ‘Occult Revival’: Everything Old Is New Again","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"From The Revealer (see blogroll under Religion and Journalism): \"Chapel Perilous: Notes From The New York Occult Revival.\" There\u2019s been a magical revival happening in New York City for two to three years,\u201d Damon Stang, the \u201cshop witch\u201d for Catland Books in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, told the New\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1428,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1428","url_meta":{"origin":1436,"position":5},"title":"Talking to UUs about Nature Religion","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 17, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I am busy working up a talk on \"nature religion\" to give to a Unitarian Universalist congregation on Sunday. Hey, it's a change: bring in the Pagan speaker at Ostara instead of Samhain. On the other hand, they did originally try to get me at Samhain, but someone messed up\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1436"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1440,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions\/1440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}